I, too, have had to let my subscription to your fine magazine lapse this year. Not because I wasn't enjoying it, but for simple economic reasons...I cannot justify spending over US$160/yr for a magazine, no matter how good it is. I'm still new enough to linux (tho I was a System 5 admin many years ago) that the magazine's content is usually just about right for me.

I really enjoy the cover discs, and expect that I have loaded at least a half-dozen distros and countless utilities and apps over the last couple of years. To me, theyu are the ebst feature of the magazine.

I don't know how many US subscribers you have, but I wonder if it might be worthwhile to investigate bulk mailing from this side of the Pond, rather than individually posting copies from the UK or wherever. I subscribe to another wonderful UK-published magazine, Woodturning, the I am able to subscribe to thru an organization in FL, for about half the price on the magazines UK website...perhaps this is an option? Finally, I would happily pay a reasonable amount for an online magazine with download capabilities.

Sorry to ramble on so long, but I really do feel bad that I had to let my sub lapse, and I hope to provide some ideas for you to think about.

Thank you for your long and useful reply. I will email you directly and make it obvious I am Erin! Sorry for the delayed reply but that awful W thing that gets in the way of FOSS gets in the way of posting and social life too. However, on the up side, I renewed my subscription tonight before I read your reply. Seeing that and that of M-Saunders (Mike) adds confidence. Seeing staff write replies to comments, which must have seen harsh, is a very decent thing to do.

Thanks and I do look forward to the PhP articles equally as much as the PERL ones.
Erin

Erin wrote:that awful W thing that gets in the way of FOSS gets in the way of posting and social life too.

W thing... Work? Wife? Windows?

Erin wrote:Seeing that and that of M-Saunders (Mike) adds confidence. Seeing staff write replies to comments, which must have seen harsh, is a very decent thing to do.

Cool. IMO nothing can be harsh if it's a genuine concern from a regular reader -- it's always good to consider improvements. Someone just coming in and saying "LXF sucks" wouldn't do much good, but fair and detailed comments are always food for thought!

The reason for why I say this is because I remember starting to read this magazine last year and I was purchasing it for USD:$17.00 per issue. I then got a subscription from my wife as a Christmas gift.

I am now finding that I am not reading as much of the magazine as before. At the begining, I was reading from cover to cover. Now, I tend to skip the X vs Y stuff for if I am not wrong, linux is about choices. What do I want in my box to help me get things accomplished and make me feel good? Only I can decide but I am getting away from the topic.

I see that the magazine is getting "fillers" that sometimes doesn't really casue any interest. For example: the review of the Happy Hacker Keyboard... why would I want to have a half fast keyboard that cost over $120??? Darn, for that much money, I'd get myself a wireless keyboard and work with that for half the price.

Your tutorials are good, but some of the readers can't benefit from jumping in at the half point (the gimp tutorials for example, if I could only get my hands on the past ones... I would really get to use this program for more than just to resize my pictures to put on my website or screen). Now, I see that you compare groups of software, how about review in the tutorials on how to set them up? Example, you did the email server software comparison not to long ago. What about a tutorial to setup a simple Exim server? That is what I like about the magazine, your "how-to" tutorials really works and I get to learn more about my system and it's capabilities than just reading a manual that has 140+ pages.

I have never thought about setting up a server once I started. With the help of your magazine, I have now 6 boxes networked and hosting my own website on my apache server. That was in a year! Think of what I could accomplish with more of the right tutorials? I am proud to show off my system to the "windo$" lovers. Well, now I am rambling... I think I should go and grab some sleep. Early day tomorrow and I have been working 29 hours straight. Oilfield services, got to love it.

The 'W' word is work. Not quite the harsh mistress I'd truly like but that is another story. Still, very good to see the authors here. Nice touch indeed even if F1GP is dragged into the forum! Only joshing.

Like some of gundam's suggestions too. How to do stuff, how to make a box productive, setting up an internal <some> server and making it public facing. DMZs, more PERL, more PhP, A-Z on simple coding but not sticking with one language/syntax but jumping around to emphasise code theory, use of some CLI tools and even <gulp> GUI equivalents and so on. How about a good tut on a silent(ish) cube boxen with wireless (IrDA, BT etc.) joystick/pak, kb and rodent with S/PDIF for home cinema, plugable into HDTV/Plasma/LCD TV and will run *nix. Environmental aspect such as DPMS on X and so on. There is such huge scope to pick up on and dabble with to emphasise the good within LXF.

Just a few ideas. Well, better than flexing the grey matter on safety cases all day!